Skepticism

EVENTS

Christianity is not religion? It’s a philosophy?

My gob, but Bill O’Reilly is an idiot. He had an argument with Dave Silverman tonight, trying to argue that the government has a perfect right to promote Christmas because Christianity is not a religion.

Right. Believing in a dead god who rose again to redeem humanity from sin is only a “philosophy”. Believing in prayer is only a “philosophy”. Believing in an afterlife with a heaven and hell is only a “philosophy”.

Oh my…Janine’s had a long habit of placing things she’s been called over the years in her nym. Janine has a way of provoking the absolute worst from the absolute worst. As far as I know, she still holds the record for such things. I’ve had my fair share, but Janine remains the queen.

Tony: A pattern that I’ve observed over the years is that if you get an idiot here arguing some regressive policy/event/whatever long enough, they get mad and the misogyny/homophobia comes out. Janine, more than any other commenter I can think of, tends to be the lightning rod for it.

This is despite that fact that sometimes I do not have the time to stay in some of those thread and often, I just do not feel up to dealing with all of that shit.

I wonder how Rebecca Watson deals with this. So far, I have relative anonymity, no public face and no e-mail accounts being filled with hate mail. I do not think I could handle what she goes through well.

Haha, poor Dave Silverman, I’m surprised he stayed in his seat for that; as soon as he said that Christianity was a philosophy and not a religion my response would have been “I’m sorry Bill, you’re an idiot!” and I’d have left.

You should have been banned for spam and repetitive spewing of word salad.

Oh. Damn. You just reminded me of an experience with a friend at his church’s picnic. One of the dishes was Spam salad. I wish I were kidding.

And this:

Hallucinating Liar then suck some balls like I told you before….. when Uni banned me. Do me a favor. It was you honey sugar baby. I knows it. I told you not to notify in email your call. You a tattytale. good fer u. U catched the bunny. Sleep tight. Now tell everyone baby.

As to someone’s comment on email settings. Forums tend to give 2-3 options:

1. Everything, as it gets posted, which means you don’t have to go back to the site, unless you want to post to the thread, to read them.

2. Digest – which is often buggy, less than useless, is generated only once a day, and never contains everything that is in the discussion thread, so.. If you do have an interest in what is going on, you might as well just bookmark the damn page, or leave the tab for it open, and use session management in your browser.

3. Inform me that something got posted – which doesn’t tell you how much, what, etc. It might be one idiot posting spam, or 800 posts of real/semi-real discussion. Again… you might as well just bookmark/session the original page.

Oh, and 4. “Don’t tell me if something new is posted.”

So, yeah, most of the time, you are probably better off using the, “Send me the stuff, as it happens.”, version. Its just… when you get a complete wacko, who strings the thing on for an entirely libraries worth of posts, that it becomes an issue. lol

Since drastik jencare was so concerned about the TOS, I refer them to what PZ has written about his moderation policy:

Get it out of your head that I am a benevolent dictator; the only thing saving your ass is that I’m an incredibly lazy dictator. Your best strategy for continuing your posting privileges is to avoid rousing my attention.

So jencare is gone? I’m not the least surprised. I think he/she was a troll, in the classic sense. I sensed the upcoming appearance of PZ’s ban-boot.

In my experience, people who are angry/volatile but have an actual point they’re trying to make will eventually calm down and make it if someone or some ones in a thread try to focus and ask genuine questions about it. That wasn’t happening — at least, not by the time I came in it wasn’t. Nothing but taunts, abuse, and videos — interspersed with fervent but brief and mostly incoherent references to the original subject (church/state legal issues on nativities and State’s Rights.) I gave up; there was no there, there.

I did wonder, reading it all, if part of the problem was that jencare was not used to writing in English (or was, perhaps, either very young or very old.) I was reminded of this.

StevoR : “Um, what about ‘em? We’re not talking about ‘em here. Quite happy to see Hannukkah and Kwanaza displays too as long as they’re not hurting anyone.”

And what about a Hanukkah or Kwanzaa display being taken down in favor of the Christian one? What about all of them being taken down in favor strictly Christian ones? Still convinced that’s a religion-neutral issue?

No. That’s not acceptable and not what I thought I was arguing for. Hannukah and Kwanza – and FSM atheist displays have as much right to be there too.

“If say, 8 out of ten people find a nativity scene just a pleasant backdrop that means, well precious little but makes them a small bit happier should we hurt them by taking it away because it bugs or makes another 2 out of those ten people feel uncomfortable?” -StevoR

And if those same 8 out of 10 people think that the other two, darker-skinned people should sit at the back of the bus (which means precious little but makes them just a small bit happier), should we hurt them by taking it away because it bugs or makes the other 2 out of those ten people feel uncomfortable?

Good point. I see what you’re getting at there and agree. You are quite right and I hadn’t thought of that extension of the principle there.

… (Long list of problems caused by religion esp. Christian zealots in the USA) .. Every one of those items I listed has religious privilege in common. This shit is infused into our society. They do not exist independent of one another. They feed of and gain power from each other. Taken on their own, sure, some of them are not as bad as others. So some actions like those that result in the death of children woukd likely be on a different point on the scale than underrepresentation of atheists in politics. Atheists being treated akin to rapists is probably not as serious as denying a father custody of his child. However, the sum of their parts adds up to a powerful whole. Fighting against any of them chips away at the religious privilege that supports them all.

Even the seemingly most minor of them, a nativity scene. Which btw, is illegal (until all belief systems are allowed; and we all know xtians won’t let other religions put displays up).

“If say, 8 out of ten people find a nativity scene just a pleasant backdrop that means, well precious little but makes them a small bit happier should we hurt them by taking it away because it bugs or makes another 2 out of those ten people feel uncomfortable? -StevoR

YES. Ever hear the phrase “tyrrany of the majority”? You’ve just supported it, right there.

Inadvertantly, yes. Mea culpa. Got it now.

And again, nobody’s saying “take it away” from them. We’re saying put it up on your own property, not property that also belongs to those two people who don’t want it there.

Fair enough.

@318. markw (found out how to change my screen name)

…and expecting those two to pay for it too. (You haven’t noticed my #253 StevoR?)

It sometimes takes me a while to read through all the comments. So many here and not always so much time available. Okay.

On your particular taxes point there, I’ll just note that plenty of people’s taxes goes to things they don’t necessarily support in a number of ways. A pacifists taxes for instance go to pay for military forces used to defend the nation and an anti-vaxxers taxes will go to pay for vaccinations and so on. Everybody pays taxes for things they dislike but they do get government representation through their elected officials so, meh. Not quite so sold on that particular specific point.

@321. Sastra :

Read microraptor’s post at #337 and keep in mind that we’re making our objections only to displays on government property here — not nativity displays. Constitutional issues tend to run very deep — even if they seem ‘petty’ on the surface. It’s very easy (too easy) to trivialize a problem if you simply look at how it “really” affects someone in their day-to-day lives. I mean, can’t you just eat at some other lunch counter which allows colored people? The food is lousy at that one anyway. And again, manger scenes as part of a larger, diverse display are much less problematic than a government-and-taxpayer-supported message of “Keep the Christ in Christmas.”

Again, yeah, you are correct there and I acknowledge that. In retrospect I let my emotions based on my own culture and experiences get away with me and overcome my logic. So, okay, I get this now at least a lot more than I did and won’t say any more about it.

To others that raised similar points, I’ve now read this whole thread – well, what’s left of it after the jencare spam /trolling had been cleaned up – and, okay, you were right on this issue. See paragraph above.

Just my opinion, but yep. Troll or not the person can sue for defamation/false light rep. Per se case considering pz is widley known for censoring dissenting opinion. Spam it was not under TOS terms, and well there are various comments left even after the peoples original comments were removed which by legal account places the indy in a false light and does perse offer a defamation claim. Specifically because posters who posted after removal are on an internal list which appears to be evidence that pz and crew do conspire to go against professional and public dissent. So yeah, may not be a lawsuit but term to shut down the site.

You’ve been accusing US atheists of ‘being “fun police” here and not letting others just have fun in their own way’ and ‘ruin[ing] others enjoyment of a festive day for petty legalities’.

And so? That contradicts the quote in #216 how exactly?

If you’d pay any attention, you’d already understand that US atheists are not trying to stop Christians from having Christian displays on public land if they are accompanied by other religions’ and atheists’ displays.

Therefore the whole “problem”, as you’ve imagined it does not exist. You are making up a fantasy and then lecturing us about it.

Look, I’m not arguing for exclusive displays at all.

Then you don’t have a point which is related to reality, since no one here is arguing against inclusive displays. You are engaging a strawman.

Just saying I don’t see why the occasional Christmas one is such a big deal.

Do you mean a Christmas display accompanied by other religions’ and atheists’ displays? That is not a big deal. Nobody [here] thinks it’s a big deal. The notion that anybody [here] thinks it’s a big deal is pure bullshit that you invented in your ignorant head.

Do you mean a Christmas display not accompanied by other religions’ and atheists’ displays? Then that would be an exclusive display, which a moment ago you claimed you weren’t arguing for.

How about you shut the fuck up and educate yourself instead of talking? That’d be nice.

And what about a Hanukkah or Kwanzaa display being taken down in favor of the Christian one? What about all of them being taken down in favor strictly Christian ones? Still convinced that’s a religion-neutral issue?

No. That’s not acceptable and not what I thought I was arguing for. Hannukah and Kwanza – and FSM atheist displays have as much right to be there too.